Poetry

Review

SOUTH AMERICAN JOURNALS January – July 1960 by Allen Ginsberg – review

Marc Olmsted

SOUTH AMERICAN JOURNALS January - July 1960 by Allen Ginsberg edited by Michael Schumacher University of Minnesota Press $29.95 First, I was immediately struck by how much unpublished poetry or early drafts (such as "Aether" and "Magic Psalm") are contained in this volume - far beyond any previous journal publications of Allen Ginsberg. In fact, he mostly wrote his journal as poetry during this period. Granted much is not A-list material, as Allen correctly understood in not publishing a lot of it. But for earnest scholars and fans, it is a gold mine. There are also amazing little notations of events, such as seeing Montgomery Clift's "Raintree County" ("he too looks sad" - in fact, Monty's face-rearranging car crash occurred in the middle of filming that picture). Likewise a long dream about Marlon Brando, who imitates Jack Kerouac's voice at one point(!) and includes a dream discussion of how great Orson Welles' Magn...
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Review

Uncle Skallywag by Shiv Mirabito – Review

Andy Clausen & Pamela Twining

The poet carries the Universe on his shoulders (p 20). Thus, Shiv Mirabito, in his beautiful and provocative new book, Uncle Skallywag, published by Shivastan Press in Kathmandu, Nepal, on handmade paper, leaps bravely into the fray - outsider art, renegade artists, poems and poets gone before, Ginsberg, Ira Cohen, Janine Pommy Vega, Corso, and many others. This book is a nifty sweep of poetry influenced by Whitman, the Beats, Buddhism, Anthropological travel, thousands of movies, and rock n roll. Let’s peruse some of them. AMERICAN VALUES, sharply satirical, is all about freedom becoming synonymous with amassing money and adoration of Self. “I know I am the crown of creation I have dominion over all that I see I am totally sure because I saw it on TV” (p13) The eponymous UNCLE SKALLYWAG defines, outlines, and reinforces the fiercely compassionate persona of Skallywag, the friendly Outsider, the goodhear...
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Review

COLLECTED POEMS OF BOB KAUFMAN – review

Marc Olmsted

COLLECTED POEMS OF BOB KAUFMAN edited by Neeli Cherkovski, Raymond Foye and Tate Swindell City Lights Books $19.95 The surrealism of Bob Kaufman is a true American surrealism, because Kaufman brings the blues, jazz and being a black man in the United States to his subconscious visions. He still remains, in my estimation, America's unequaled surrealist. Just as Beat's other most famous black poet, Amiri Baraka, spawned the Last Poets and the eventual rise of rap, Kaufman's influence is not only present today in Will Alexander and transmale Blackfoot poet Max Wolf Valerio, but in Bob Dylan. It was Amiri Baraka himself who coined the term Afrosurreal Expressionism in 1974 to discussing the work of Henry Dumas, and was later expanded in the Afrosurreal Manifesto by D. Scott Miller. Afrosurrealism is now considered a very active movement, with a wide pantheon that now considers Ted Joans and Samuel R. Delany among its members. ...
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